Issue 54 Impact Evaluation of MEJNIN (Meyeder Jonnyo Nirapod Nagorikotto): A project on combating sexual harassment against girl students in public places

Sexual harassment (popularly known as eve teasing) is a form of violence and social crime that creates multiple effects on a woman or a girl. Many girls experience sexual harassment in front of schools and different public places in Bangladesh. To combat this, BRAC Gender Justice and Diversity (GJD) programme implemented a programme called Meyeder Jonnyo Nirapod Nagorikotto (MEJNIN) from 2012 to 2016 with the objective of raising mass awareness on sexual harassment and to consider this as a crime, enhancing responsiveness of the community to combat sexual harassment, creating a social movement against sexual harassment in secondary educational institutions and providing immediate support to victims of sexual harassment and expand support for the victims’ access to justice. A mixed method study with quasi-experimental research design is considered for this study and data has been collected from two different cohorts of secondary school going adolescent boys and girls (grade six to eight). Results from this study found that programme area shows significant progress in terms of knowledge, attitudes and practices compared to the baseline findings. About 60 percent of the students actually know about sexual harassment issues, which are taught during the MEJNIN training sessions. Knowledge of legal awareness and referral system (e.g., hotline numbers) is greater and statistically significant among treatment group of students than the control group. Regarding attitude issues, both boys and girls showed similar sorts of response pattern which are either completely agree or disagree with any given statement. After four years of program intervention, the incidence of sexual harassment hasbeen found to be dropped by 47.4 percent in the program intervention areas. In addition, the study depicts that the possibility of becoming a victim of sexual harassment is one of the reasons for parents to push their daughters into early marriage. Moreover, to take any action against any sexual harassment incidents in some hotspot areas are challenging because local political perpetrators control these hotspots. However, a strong community network has been found to be developed to stand against sexual harassment and early marriage in the programme intervention areas. The study outlined comprehensive recommendations for further action to create a safe and sexual harassment free environment for the secondary school going girls in Bangladesh.